


The Road is Broken (but I'm Driving a Range Rover)

by Hecate



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 19:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stefan is the one who leaves. He promised, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road is Broken (but I'm Driving a Range Rover)

Stefan is the one who leaves. He promised, after all; he promised to leave if Elena ever chose one of them. And she did, and she's a vampire now, so he won't return, not ever, and he doesn't say goodbye to any of them.

He leaves and he is swallowed up by the road. He doesn't sleep for days, doesn't eat until his hands shake and the car sways on the street like a drunkard stumbling home. 

He bites a hitchhiker, lets him live. Doesn't really know how he stopped himself. Thinks, 'Are you proud of me now, Damon?', thinks "Is this what you wanted?' And keeps on going. The scenery starts to change but he doesn't notice, his eyes on the road, on the strip of concrete that leads him away from Mystic Falls. 

He doesn't stop at motels, the comfort of walls making him restless. He parks the car at the side of the street when he has to close his eyes, when he falls away from the waking world.

The phone rings too often to count. He never answers.

When he sleeps, he dreams of Elena, of Damon. They're laughing, always laughing, and it echoes when he opens his eyes. He sleeps even less then, always moving, always running, and it starts to show. He is a vampire but there are limits even for him. He's getting closer to crossing all of them.

It doesn't matter. Because he's driving and the road doesn't end.

Katherine is the first to find him.

She walks into the shop of the gas station he's at, smiling at him across an aisle.

'Elena,' he thinks for a couple of seconds. She smirks. Disappointment hits him like a punch; relief soon follows. "Katherine," he says, and her smirk grows. She walks over to him, her body moving in a way that is so unlike Elena. It's not her being a vampire, they both are now, after all; it's all Katherine. Swaying hips and sure steps, her head held up high, her back straight.

He used to love the way she moves.

But it's been decades since she was everything, and he never loved Elena because she looked like Katherine. He loved her despite of it.

"Hello Stefan," she drawls, her voice tinted with amusement. "I heard about Elena, heard about you running. Had to see it myself." She grins. "She isn't particularly good at being a vampire. Reminds me of you, to be honest."

He frowns. "Is she..."

"Still fucking Damon? Alive? Okay? Yes, matter of interpretation, no."

He looks away, stares at the ground. He can't look at her now, can't, because she's standing still and everything about her makes him think of Elena. And he went away, just like he promised.

"You did know about her and Damon, didn't you?" Katherine asks, and she sounds different now, the laughter gone from her voice.

He nods. "It's why I left."

She laughs. "You're being ridiculous and overly dramatic. Though that's hardly a surprise." She steps closer then, steps into his space, and he feels her body close to his, alien and familiar, and he can't help but lean in.

"Katherine," he says to her because he has to say it to somebody, "she died."

"We all do at some point," she counters. But she reaches out and locks her fingers with his, is quiet with him for a while.

Then, "Where are we going," and he doesn't even think of telling her to leave. Katherine only ever listened to him if he fit in with her plans anyway, and he isn't ready for any of those.

He shrugs. "I don't know."

She is still holding his hand when she answers: "I'll guess we'll find out when we get there."

Katherine leads him to his car then, takes the wheel and floors the pedal. She hits the speed limit, drives faster, and when she compels the cop stopping them, he doesn't protest. 

"I should have seen it coming," he says, hours later.

She shrugs. "Wouldn't have helped. Wouldn't have changed anything."

They are silent again.

She stops at a motel, pulls him into the room she gets for them. "I'm going to get dinner," she tells him, and comes back with a man not much later. They both drink from him. That, too, doesn't change anything.

The man is still alive when they leave the next morning.

The road Katherine chooses leads them into nowhere, tar and asphalt surrounded by woods and hills, greens and browns. It looks a lot like Mystic Falls, looks like so many places he has been before.

They hunt in daylight. 

Deers and hikers, and there should be a difference between them, a difference big enough to mean something. There isn't, and Stefan is too tired to come up with excuses or explanations. 

Stefan wonders, briefly, why human blood doesn't drive him insane anymore, why he can let go before he kills them. He thinks it might be Katherine, thinks it might be his sire at his side. He doesn't ask her. 

He drinks, and he drives, and he watches America pass him by through the car window. Katherine makes him laugh once, twice; makes him smile. He tells himself not to read too much into it, to let it go. But he has never been good at that.

"What are you doing here?" he asks Katherine weeks after she came to him, found him.  
She shrugs. "Driving."

He frowns, glares at her. She only smiles at the windshield.

"What do you want from me?" Stefan corrects himself.

Katherine's smile turns into a smirk. "The same thing I always wanted."

He looks away then, looks away because she looks like Elena and she looks like herself, and it's too much, it's still and always too much.

"You don't love me," he tells her. "You only love yourself."

She looks at him then, takes her eyes off the road but keeps the car steady. "I only care for myself. There's a difference."

They're silent, then. He takes a turn driving not much later. At night, she crawls into his bed, her lips warm and wet with blood on his. He doesn't kiss her back. His hand rests on her hip as they sleep.

Elena still calls him sometimes; Damon, too. He never picks up the phone. Katherine notices, of course she does.

"It's the sire bond," she says, and he shrugs because it doesn't matter, because Elena still feels it and there is no place for him in this world anymore. 

"You're still being a drama queen," she goes on.

He shrugs again. They stop talking about it.

Klaus calls him a few hours later. Stefan picks up the phone.

"Where are you," he asks, and Stefan suddenly misses him, needs him, hates him.

He answers, "I don't know," because he doesn't, because he doesn't look at road signs and doesn't choose a direction.

Katherine takes the phone. He leaves her to talk then, steps out of the motel room they'd chosen for the night, and watches the parking lot, the cars and the people. It's strangely beautiful.

"He'll meet us in the next city," Katherine says behind him. He nods. Doesn't ask why Katherine lets Klaus find them, doesn't ask what they talked about. She wouldn't tell him anyway.

Klaus comes to them in a club, dropping into the seat next to Stefan with a grin. "Are you replacing the replacement with the other replacement?" he asks Stefan, nodding at Katherine.

"I never knew the first one," is all Stefan says. 

Klaus doesn't comment.

Stefan dances with Katherine that night, bites a man in a dark hallway, drinks something sharp and bitter Klaus puts in his hand. They return the next night and the night after, a loop winding around them for a week until they stumble away from it, strangely weary.

Klaus buys a new car, something bigger to fit them all, and they leave Stefan's car behind. Stefan mails its keys and papers to Matt along with an address. "It's yours now," he writes because he remembers that night with Caroline, because he's too sentimental and he can't let go of anything without knowing where it ends up after he lets it fall away.

Klaus is the first behind the wheel, Stefan choosing to sit at his side. Katherine is in the back, curled up, her eyes closed.

They drive on.

Klaus mocks them for the motels they used to stay in, books them into the most expensive place in every town they stay. They let him. The beds and rooms don't matter anyway.

"Are you okay?" Stefan asks Katherine once, means 'Are you okay with Klaus here,' and she smirks.

"He isn't trying to kill me right now," she answers, and he doesn't remind her of the years she spent running, of the way Klaus hurt her. It's not something Katherine would ever forget.

He keeps his body between the two of them whenever he can.

Katherine laughs about it. "I don't need to be protected," she tells him.

"I know," he answers, and doesn't tell her that he is the one who needs this, needs to protect her. She figures it out anyway, she knows him well enough.

"My hero," she drawls, steps into his space and wraps her arms around his neck.

"It's not the beginning of a love story," he says. Looks over to Klaus.

Katherine grins. "We could get rid of him."

He shrugs. "Wouldn't change a thing."

She kisses him then; he lets his hands fall to her hips. He thinks of Elena, thinks of meeting Katherine for the first time. Thinks of the years between these women. Steps away from Katherine. She lets him go.

He tries to get drunk a few cities later. Klaus joins him a few hours in, ordering a drink of his own. Katherine is nowhere to be seen.

"You look pathetic," Klaus informs him.

Stefan shrugs. "What do you care?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, doesn't want it. Doesn't ask why Klaus followed them. He knows. Klaus is as bad at letting go as Stefan himself, and he's even worse at being alone.

"Will you go back?" Klaus suddenly asks. Downs his glass of whiskey.

Stefan doesn't need to ask what Klaus means. Shrugs. Shakes his head.

"All you find in that town is loneliness," Klaus tells him. "And whatever you gain there, you are sure to lose."

Stefan snorts. "You fucked things up with your family, not the town."

He ignores Klaus' answering glare. They're silent, for a while.

"Is this helping?" Klaus asks suddenly. "Running? It never helped me."

For a moment, Stefan hates him for his honesty, hates that Klaus so rarely lies to him. It'd all be easier if he did.

"Can't say yet," Stefan says.

Klaus nods.

"Well, we haven't run out of road yet," he comments, and Stefan can't help but smile.

"We never do," he answers.

Klaus goes still then, terribly still, and there is a grief in his face Stefan has never seen before.

"I wouldn't be sure of that," Klaus says. He gets up, downing another whiskey as he goes. "I'll see you later."

Stefan watches him leave, thinks of the first time Klaus left him behind all those years ago. Turns away and orders another drink.

The next day, they drive on. It feels as if they're always driving on.

Damon calls him a week later. Stefan ignores it. He's becoming better at that. 

Katherine sighs. 

"He's too stubborn, you know that," she says and leans into him, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Salvatore-Petrova-Mikaelson car, how may I help you," she chirps into the phone. 

Stefan can hear Klaus laugh in the seat behind him. He can hear the silence that answers Katherine's gleeful greeting.

Then Damon speaks. 

Stefan hums to himself so he doesn't have to hear his brother's voice. After a while, Katherine hands him the phone.

"Katherine and Klaus?" Damon asks, and Stefan misses him so much that he can't tell him, can only breathe against the pain.

"It seems like I can never get rid of them for a long time," he says. It sounds stupid even though it's true.

"You can always set them on fire," Damon says, and the fake cheer in his voice makes Stefan grin.

"We tried that one with Klaus already," he replies. "Didn't really work."

"Pesky witches." Damon answers, the conversation dancing back and forth between them, and all Stefan wants to do is turn the car and drive home to his big brother. But he doesn't.

Instead, he says: "I promised."

And Damon understands. "Elena wasn't a vampire back then."

"That doesn't matter," Stefan says, because it can't, because promises don't bend like that.

Damon's voice is sharper when he answers; angry, almost. "It does. We never made this decision thinking of a few centuries."

"Damon," Stefan starts, forces his voice to be steady and strong. "I'm staying away. For now."

"Don't worry, Damon," Katherine calls out then, laughter in her voice. "We're taking care of him."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Damon says, and Stefan knows he means more than Stefan being away. Means Katherine and Klaus, means a promise they both made, means the road and the car and the distance between them.

"I know." Stefan is silent for a moment, listens to the silence on the other end of the line. "I'll call you," he finally goes on. "Be careful."

"You, too," Damon answers.

Then, all Stefan hears is the disconnected line. He drives too fast for hours, drives like Katherine, until they get pulled over by a cop. It's a familiar scene but it's Stefan who compels the man, Stefan who drinks his blood. The others don't comment.

It's Klaus who keeps Stefan from killing him.

"You'd be a whiny ass for miles if I hadn't," he says later, smirking at Stefan's question.

"I had it under control," Stefan begins, smiles mirthlessly when Klaus raises a mocking eyebrow. "Before... before Damon called."

Klaus nods. "Siblings. Can't live with them, can't leave them daggered forever."

They go out together that night, get a table in a club, watching the bodies around them move to the music like marionettes. Stefan remembers another club then, another table; he remembers another woman by his side. He loved Rebeccah back then, he has always been good at loving people. But Katherine came before her. Katherine came before most things.

He dances with both Katherine and Klaus that night. 

He hunts in the middle of the dance floor. Lures bodies away from the crowd, into dimly lit hallways, presses them against walls as he bites into soft flesh. When he moves away, Katherine or Klaus are watching him. 

"I'm not going to kill them," he says.

They never reply. Just step closer to wipe the blood from his mouth, come with him as he walks back into the strobe light.

He kisses Katherine first.

He kisses her surrounded by the living, her body strong against his, her mouth pulled into a smile beneath his own. He sinks his teeth into her lips then, tastes her blood, and he remembers loving her.

Even when he was afraid of her, he still loved her.

But it's been a while since then, decades spent forgetting and hating and missing her. There was Rebeccah and there is Elena and there were others before and in between. Not like his holy trinity, but they were there and they were loved. 

Most of them are dead now.

He kisses Klaus to forget about them, his hand still in Katherine's, and Stefan knows that people are watching them. He doesn't care; he’s lived too long and too hard to care about it.

It's Katherine who pulls him out of the club then, Katherine who leads them back to the hotel and into the bed. But they follow, oh how they follow. 

They're graceless because their hands are too hard and their mouths too hungry. They're graceless because they broke each other and they haven't healed yet. It doesn't matter. For that night, it doesn't matter. He can always start to care again in the morning.

They don't sleep that night.

"Are we staying for a few days longer?" Katherine asks when dawn colors the room.

"Already sentimental, love?" Klaus counters, and Stefan thinks of getting up, of moving away. Instead, he stretches out between the two of them, thinks of himself as a border between two nations at war: The line between the struggle, the dirt they're fighting over, the soil that will always connect them. 

They both would laugh at him if he ever voiced that thought.

"No," Katherine says, and it takes Stefan a moment to remember the conversation. "The bed is just very nice."

Klaus laughs at that, throws his head back, bares his teeth. He looks strangely open like this; too open. It makes Stefan think of the many times Klaus told him that he missed him.

He gets up, walks away from the bed, away from them. Stands still for a few moments and closes his eyes. Thinks of what the two of them have took from him, what he has taken from others. Thinks of a death he should have had and a future he doesn't know what to do with.

Turns around.

"I don't love you," he says, and he isn't sure which of them he's talking to. Katherine smirks, Klaus shrugs.

She gets out of the bed then, graceful limbs and tiger smile. "But you're with us," Katherine says, stepping closer to Stefan.

Klaus moves, too, closes the circle, and Stefan thinks of running. But he doesn't. He's tired of it, has been for days, and he just wants to keep standing still for a while.

Klaus smiles when he breaks the silence.

"And we're with you."

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.


End file.
